


It was probably nothing but it felt like the world.

by takaraikarin



Category: Japanese Actor RPF, Japanese Comedian RPF
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takaraikarin/pseuds/takaraikarin
Summary: It tickled Hiroiki somewhere deep in his bones, that the moment he realized that he would probably die here, underneath the oppressing humidity of this alien sky, that the moment he realized days of malnourishment could indeed be as fatal as he previously vaguely thought it could, he thought of Shitara.





	It was probably nothing but it felt like the world.

It was probably nothing but it felt like the world.  
Shitara Osamu/Ariyoshi Hiroiki  
R – unhealthy relationship  
Takarai Karin

 

Here is my spine. Here  
is all the hollow. Here is all the longing. Here  
is the heavy tongue, the scratchy vocal  
chords. Here are all of the I love you’s.  
Here is the shocking wreck of it all. Here is  
how you were closer to me than my bones,  
my skin. Here is the quiet city, your empty  
side of the bed. Here is the empty. Here is not  
knowing whether you loved me or not. Here is  
the poem that can’t save us.  
– Kristina H.

 

=

 

Autumn 2007

 _It’s been a long time,_ , he said, light and easy as always while Hiroiki stood there, almost forgetting how to breathe. _Seriously, the last time was- when? How many years ago?_ He continued then, sliding into the stool next to his.

 _Not nearly long enough,_ , Hiroiki quipped, and when those eyes glinted delightfully, seeing a challenge, knew he shouldn’t have sassed.

Now, Hiroiki chuckled softly to himself as he lied there in that too soft bed, the weight of Shitara’s arms around his waist.

The last time was eight years and three months ago. Hiroiki remembered clearly because he was spending the whole day trying not to throw up at Shitara’s wedding reception.

He still didn’t know why he was invited. Because they were friends, for lack of a better term? He still didn’t know why he came. Because he wanted to see her face? Because he wanted to test if his own social facade won’t crack at the sight of them at the altar?

He remembered Tsuchida-san had questions in his eyes, like he always did. His wife was beside holding their youngest son, and Hiroiki never felt as out of place as right then, surrounded by so much matrimonial bliss. He remembered the perpetual lump in his throat that day, bitterer than raw water in some forsaken land.

He had let Tsuchida-san guide him to a taxi, long before the ceremony’s scheduled finish, whispering an excuse to his wife. He’s coming down with something, Tsuchida-san said, and his wife readily believed him. Hiroiki had looked so pale.

That Hiroiki spent days curled in his futon in sheer refusal to believe the world hadn’t collapsed on itself. That Hiroiki was an immensely better person, though. He didn’t sleep with men with rings on their fingers.

 

=

 

Autumn 2007

‘How was the show?’ She asked, half a mind still on the laptop in front of her as Osamu walked by her towards the cabinet for a night cap. Scotch tonight, she noted from the corner of her eyes, and couldn’t help but raised an eyebrow when she noticed it was the good Balvenie.

‘Great. Lots of guys I haven’t met in a while.’ He said while plopping down onto the sofa, absently flipping channels. She knew there’s more to the story there. Her husband sounded distracted.

‘Sounds fun,’ she replied without looking away from the computer screen, eyes scrolling the children’s education site she’d just opened.

‘Yeah…’ he trailed away.

They sat there in that room, facing away from each other, and Michiko was just absentmindedly contemplating how comfortable this is, them and their separate lives, with this neutral place they can come home to. The arrangement was good for their relationship, the best thing that’s ever happened to it. They’ve never gotten along better, not even when they were dating. 

‘Hey, by the way, you remember Ariyoshi?’ Osamu suddenly asked to the silence, and Michiko couldn’t help but frown.

‘Yeah, why? He was shooting too?’

‘Yup. Surprised me, didn’t think I’d see him there,’

‘Hmm…’

Yes, sure, Michiko remembered Ariyoshi, with his baby face and shy smiles that contrast the sharpness of his gaze. As per their arrangements, they never bring their dalliances into their home. She has her guys and Osamu has his, but they’re outside, separate from this neutral ground. But Michiko had seen glimpses of the boys Osamu would have fun with (as she believed Osamu probably had of hers), and some of them have that shy smiles, and others have those sharp eyes, but mostly Michiko had seen different version of the same face—Ariyoshi’s face, with her husband over the years.

Her frown deepened at that. She didn’t quite know what to do with this. This wasn’t really what their arrangement was about. She remembered Ariyoshi, and she didn’t know if the boy in her memory would know how to keep the peace, the balance of all of this, and she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t affect their neutral ground.

 

=

 

Summer 1996

It tickled Hiroiki somewhere deep in his bones, that the moment he realized that he would probably die here, underneath the oppressing humidity of this alien sky, that the moment he realized days of malnourishment could indeed be as fatal as he previously vaguely thought it could, he thought of Shitara.

He chuckled to himself, not caring of the camera crew, or of Moriwaki. Moriwaki was as lightheaded and near death as he was, he’s probably having fever dreams too.

The thought of Shitara in this barren land felt as strange as unknown constellations looking down at him. He felt distanced from everything, from his old life, from his own skin, from the taste of that name on his lips. How could it be that he’s so far away, like a faint memory from another life, and yet could still manage to get under his skin? He could feel goosebumps rising on his withering hands, and look at his hands. Look at those brittle fingers. No wonder things slip away from him all the time. 

It was close to another half a day before they heard a car approaching from a distance, and Hiroiki felt Moriwaki grabbed him by the collar. He didn’t manage to yank him up, they’re both too weak, but Hiroiki heard him croak out a dead man’s version of ‘help’.

Hiroiki felt himself slip into another feverish sleep as the sound of car engine drove closer and alien voices in an alien tongue shout back at them. They sounded concerned.

Good, concern is good, Hiroiki thought as he curled into a fetal position and thought of playful smirks and carefree eyes and things that are more bites than kisses.

 

=

 

Summer 1995

‘I do this three times,’ he said

‘Do what?’

‘This. Love confessions. I do it three times, and I never back down from the first two ‘no’s.’

‘You call this a love confession? Besides, when’s the other two?’

‘You don’t remember? I’ve got your cum down my throat and four fingers up your ass and you don’t remember?’

‘How the fuck is that a love confession? Were you dropped on the head as a child?’

Shitara really has shit timing. Who talks about love, about romance, in a private room in some dinky drink house, and dared to look disappointed when Hiroiki didn’t look the slightest bit impressed? There was a shift in the atmosphere, but Hiroiki still sat there waiting (hoping) for more jokes –crass ones, slightly cruel ones, but none came. Instead Shitara grew silent. Hiroiki could feel the weight of his gaze on his person, sharp and questioning and dangerous, always hinting at the dangerous unknown.

Hiroiki hates the unknown.

This should be easy. He should just turn around right now and drag him out back, slam the guy against fittingly grimy walls and sink on his knees. He was wearing his heavy worker’s jeans, Hiroki remembers those jeans well. He could still faintly remember the taste of those zippers. Or, failing that, maybe he should just drag him to the nearest love hotel. Love hotels are nice, clean, anonymous. Nobody’s there for romance, they’re only there to scratch itches, and the beds are a lot kinder on his knees.

Yeah, a love hotel sounds like a good idea.

What’s a bad (catastrophic) idea is realizing a bit too late that Shitara had moved closer towards him and that their faces are inches apart. His eyes looked darker this up close, and Hiroiki’s sure the universe was being decidedly unfair when it shaped his mouth like that, and colored it that shade.

Shitara himself was being decidedly unfair as a flicker of tongue peeked out to moisten his lower lip. Seriously, who could say no to that fucking face?

When Shitara’s lips touched his, it was with more care than Hiroki thought it would, like Shitara was afraid Hiroiki would run away any minute now.

(He should, really,).

When Hiroki angled his head for a better angle, though, Shitara groaned low in his throat and opened his mouth wider, catching Hiroiki’s lips with his, straight rows of teeth resting softly on his lower lip and tugging down lightly, opening Hiroiki’s mouth in the process. The smallest of opening was all it took for Hiroiki to feel Shitara’s tongue snaked in, forcing his mouth to open further as it made its way inside, twining with Hiroiki’s own in a delicious caress, and Hiroiki couldn’t be blamed for the moan that tore out of his throat.

‘Come home with me’ Shitara said between kisses, and it wasn’t a question. 

 

=

 

Spring 1999

 _I’m not in the mood to be big-hearted_  
_I’m not in the mood to take the higher road_  
_I’m not in the mood to hold my head high, keep my dignity intact and smile, be an adult, show people the face suitable for social affairs_.

_I don’t have the will or the energy to do any of that_

_I’m only in the mood for ugly crying, for lying on the floor lamenting life_  
_I’m only in the mood for leaving, right now, turning back while still catching glances at you_  
_(because you look handsome in your tux, and because my eyes still search for you), not even pretending I’m too good for that._

_I’m only in the mood to get the hell out of here, get into the back of a taxi, tell it to drive me wherever. I’m in no mood to pretend to be strong._

 

=

 

Spring 2011

Hiroiki used to only drink cheap beer.

Correction, Shitara used to could only afford cheap beer. Because he was broke even when Hiroiki were loaded after that hitchhiking hell, and there was some senpai pride left in him that would only allow Hiroiki to buy him cheap beer. And it’s weird not drinking the same thing as he is, so Hiroiki drank the same thing.

(Actually, Hiroiki drank the same thing as he does, and drinks it slower, because when he’s done with his, he’d often sneak a gulp or two, and when he gave the bottle back Hiroiki would rest his lips gingerly on the track of wetness from his mouth, covering it with his own and wondering if he’s tasting traces of his spit).

Without notice, he’s drinking bourbon now, while Hiroiki was nursing his second bottle of dassai, knowing his younger self would sneer at the sight of the both of them, drinking from bottles worth more than his old monthly food allowance.

Hiroiki wondered if this is what it means to be upstanding adults. Fine food and fine drinks and cerebral conversation with no real meaning.

And Hiroiki no longer knows when he means what he says, no longer knows what’s the meaning of ‘Let’s go for a drink later,’ or ‘we haven’t seen each other in a while, I wanna meet’

What does all of that mean? Does a drink mean a drink or a drunken fumble where Hiroiki would pretend to be drunker than he really is, before sliding onto his knees in front of him? When does a meet means a meet and when does it mean his wife is out of town and he wants someone in his bed?

Fucking shakou jirei.

He doesn’t used to do lip service, and now, with gaps in years from the last time Hiroiki had properly met him, he’d gotten so good at it he doesn’t know which one is Shitara’s social face and which isn’t.

 

=

 

Spring 2016

Fuck him and his fucking arrangement with his wife. Hiroiki already has no problem hating himself without further (proper) guilt on top of it. He knows all about having a shitty father, and Shitara may be a wonderful one, but Hiroiki honestly doesn’t think his presence could be seen as anything but negative for that family.

He took one look at Nanaha and knew he’d made his choice. Shitara has made his choice himself, all of those years ago, and they should live with the consequences. They all should.

The consequences is him leaving, now, waving a hand and smiling gently at Nanaha-chan and her big, innocent eyes, tore out his tattered heart and place it in her little hands and walk away, turn around and leave her life, and her father’s life, and he might never be whole again, and he might never truly love himself, but he’d be able to live with himself again. 

That should be enough to last him a lifetime.

It should.

 

=

 

Spring 1995

‘Ariyoshi… Hiroiki?’ there was a soft lilt of a question as the man read out the cast list with a soft wrinkle between his well-defined brows, and Hiroiki couldn’t help but turn fully to look. Nobody could ever read his name right on the first try.

He found himself staring at a young man his age (a bit older, maybe?), striking-looking with his spiky hair and sharp eyes glinting with wit and what he read as mischievousness. Hiroki could feel his walls rising. He straightened his back and crossed his arm in preemptive defense, in direct contrast with the stranger’s slouching posture that seemed to be breaching his personal space more as he loomed closer and closer.

He cursed inwardly at his disadvantageous height.

‘Yeah, how-?’

‘Oh. You’re him?’ the stranger said again, and Hiroki wondered if he shouldn’t have admitted to the name so readily. The beginning of a half smile was forming the man’s lips into an upward slant that Hiroiki would spend a lifetime questioning the meaning of, but he didn’t know that at the time. Hiroiki looked with distrust at the proffered hand.

A hand-shaker? Doesn’t seem to be somebody he’d get along with, hand-shakers. 

The man seemed to find hand-shake refusals amusing, for he chuckled and reached forward instead. Hiroiki blinked as he felt an arm snaked around his shoulders, bringing their faces close together as the stranger angled his body forward and steered him down the theater hallway.

‘You’re with me, then. The name’s Shitara, by the way. You the Ohta-Pro guy?’ he, (Shitara, apparently,) said lightly near his ear, and Hiroiki had to crane his neck away to look closer at him.

What a hard to read guy.

 

=

Even if I now saw you  
Only once,  
I would long for you  
Through worlds,  
Worlds.  
– Izumi Shikibu


End file.
